Krakow, Poland

Highlights of my friday to monday vacation:

1. Perogies - lots
2. Sausage - just one, but it was good
3. Vodka - .....
4. Auschwitz - the primary Nazi death camp in WWII
5. Wieliczka Salt Mine - salty.

Check out my pictures after you read my blog.

This was the most relaxing vacation yet. I decided to sleep in instead of running around like a chicken with no head trying to see everything in the entire city, and some things outside of it. I saw what I considered to be the most important things, I ate a lot of reaaallllyy good food, did NOT deprive myself of sleep for once in the last month, and had a really really good time :)

I ate perogies every single day, at LEAST once a day. Those frozen ones I ate in Canada do not stand a chance compared to these homemade perogies. I had soo many kinds,
- potatoes and cheese
- potatoes and cottage cheese with tomato, basil and bacon
- red bean and mozerella with mexican sauce
- pork
- meat and cabbage (menu didn't say what kind of meat, i couldn't tell :P)
- CHOCOLATE! yes, chocolate perogies. Deee-lish!
This one place I went to, the perogies were deep fried and so was the plate. You could eat the plate! Everything was always soaked in butter or cream....oh gawd.

When researching things to do on the trip we came across several references to these two apparently infamous guys who after 9 p.m. pull their van up along the side of a certain street and cook sausages over a wood fire in a metal thing.... These guys were in Wiki Travel, so of course we had to search them out. It was a really good walk from our hostel, probably took us about half an hour to find them, but it was worth it! They gave us an enormous sausage and a bun...but the sausage didn't go in the bun...you were just supposed to eat them at the same time, it was different. After sausages we hit up an underground (literally) irish pub for some St. Paddy's Day celebrations. It was St. Paddy's Day the weekend before in London too....definitely got my yearly dose of that holiday.

On Sunday we all went to the Wieliczka Salt Mine nearby. That was really interesting actually... Did you know that people used to be paid in salt? That's where the word 'salary' comes from. We went down about 800 million stairs into the mine, and the air there is actually totally sterile. There are no bacteria, no viruses, no spiders....nothing! The air is really good for people with asthma and allergies, I guess in the summer kids who have it really bad go to this mine so they can breathe. There were chapels (one really big absolutely gorgeous one) carved completely out of salt in the mine, a lot of salt statues (including one of pope John Paul II - they really really love that guy in Poland), and several underground salt lakes which were really beautiful. Inside a cave there was a lake that was 40 percent salt so it was like a mirror. It would have made an ideal setting for a scene in Harry Potter. All kinds of events are held in one of the big chapel/halls. Weddings, opera's (the acoustics were amazing), grad parties.... They have a lot of trouble at these events when people who have been drinking are leaving. Because of the air pressure down there one can drink and drink and they don't feel drunk, and then the elevator takes them back to the surface so quickly, that a lot of people become drunk during that 40 second ride and pass out. They always have a bunch of ambulances waiting at the top. When we left we didn't have to take the stairs, thank goodness, but instead they packed us into a multi-level lift so tightly that you couldn't move anything, and then rushed us to the surface at the speed of sound.....it was scary.

Sunday night we went bar hopping with a guy we met at the hostel, sampling the infamous polish vodka. They have a looott of different kinds...I swear a different kind for every drink they make... You'd think mixing vodka with juice would be pretty standard, but no. Apparently different vodka's go better with different juices... Sooo we went to a couple places and one was again underground and looked like a cave, it was cool. Here a certain somebody with a very low tolerance for alcohol threw up in the corner and we got kicked out :P It was NOT me mom, I behaved don't worry!

Saturday Jarrett and I took a bus trip to a nearby town to visit Auschwitz. This, if you don't already know was the biggest and most important death camp during WWII. We spent 4 hours at the camp listening and seeing the remains of the setting for the greatest horror story in the world. It was very sobering and very very disturbing, but I'm glad that I went. The halocaust happened...it happened...I'm still trying to process this, I really can't actually believe or accept it...but it happened, and Auschwitz is a place I felt I should go.

One of the many things that blew my mind was the level that the nazi's went to decieve the people they murdered. People from all over the world were sent to Auschwitz to die. When jewish families were moved from ghettos they were told they were just moving, that they could bring suitcases. When they arrived by train through the gate of death (maybe you've seen this if you've seen Schindler's List) the families left their suitcases in a pile, and were told they would be delivered to where they'd be living a little later. Women and children were seperated from men, and all were told that it was only temperary, but in fact the women and children were almost always immediately taken to the gas chambers and murdered. They went so far in their deceptions in order to keep the peace... The gas chambers were designed to look like showers, with fake shower heads. The victims were told that they were just taking a shower to disinfect them after their long journey, were told to remember where they left their clothes when they took them off....completely unaware until it was too late.

Everything was taken from the murdered and nothing was wasted. Human hair was used as a raw material to make textiles and cloth...Some of the uniforms worn by nazi officers was made of cloth from the hair. They extracted gold from teeth, saved all hair brushes and toothbrushes, shoes, all the clothes....clothes from everybody, from babies....everything. All the loot was stored in two store houses. These store houses were called Canada I and Canada II by the prisoners, because Canada was seen as a really good place at that time....it was seen as 'the land of plenty'. I thought that was interesting.

The man who was in charge of the entire camp lived right beside it. Literally right beside it, the death camp was in his backyard, and the gas chamber was right beside it too. He had a wife and children....his children grew up with a death camp in their back yard. Actually at one point he got promoted and had to move, but his wife liked living there so much she chose to stay there with the children. Blows my mind.

The things that were done to these people.....my mind tries to process it and I can't...I just can't believe that anybody...and not just one person but lots of people....could do the things that they did....

The trip was an eye opener. I knew horrible things happened, but I never really realized the full extent of it. And now, after 4 hours of listening to the details about what was done to people....I still don't realize it. It's too much for my mind to understand.... but at least I know more now.

I took some pictures, but not many. And none of the gas chambers or crematorium. After not very long it began to feel disrespectful to be taking photos. It was a very silent bus ride back to Krakow.

Even though visiting Auschwitz is a very saddening and disturbing experience, I would reccomend anyone who has the opportunity, and the stomach, to go there and experience it for yourself. It's good I think, for us to be as educated as possible, and for us to come face to face with the mistakes of the past, lest they be repeated. It's easy to think that nothing so autrocious could ever happen again....but couldn't it? There are still a lot of racist people out there. One of the things that makes me so, so angry is racism. I can't stand intolerance and hatred for other people's lifestyles, their culture's their religions...I can't understand hatred of an entire race or group of people because they have different beliefs and traditions or different sexual orientation... What's the big deal, really? I think we're doing better, as a world, but we still have a very long way to go.

The Canadian Accent, through the ears of a Brit

My dear friend Ed recently proposed a very serious mission for me. Being the brave girl I am, I accepted the challenge.

THE MISSION:
Find out how English people perceive the Canadian accent.

Alright, so I went straight to the source and asked my friend English Matt. I really have to directly quote our conversation, I hope you enjoy this as much as I did :)

MISSION ACCOMPLISHED:

Natasha says:
Hey Matty...question for you.... what does a Canadian accent sound like to you guys? Does it sound funny....how would you describe it?

English Matt says:
Well that be a toughee......it doesnt sound funny.....it sounds perfectly normal without the stupidity of a south american.....so you sound classy is what im trying to say

Natasha says:
haha REALLY?!?!

English Matt says:
Well.....yeah. Ive heard some god awful accents that enrage me and give me urges to kill.......but the Canadian brings out my soft and fluffy side....as in i would listen to a Canadian conference and not go on a murderous rampage.

Well there you have it folks. The Canadian accent, through the ears of a Brit. :P

London, England - Tea, Crumpets,Theatre and The Queen

Ok so this weekend I had tea and crumpets at Buckingham Palace while watching a play with the Queen.

No, not really...but how cool would that have been? Unfortunately the Queen was in Australia this weekend, so I had to hang out with my friends. Instead I had tea, hot cross buns, watched a play with my friends (who slept through most of it) and stood outside the palace with all the other tourists.

Let's rewind a little bit. I was planning my trip, and I was talking to Russel (fellow bioinformatician at waterloo) about having tea and crumpets and scones this weekend, and then i realized something... You think of England, you think of tea and crumpets. But what the hell is a crumpet? I never knew... so i googled it. You know what it is? AN ENGLISH MUFFIN!! lol. I'm going to start calling them crumpets, crumpet is a way cooler word. And what we call french toast, they call eggy bread... what they call french toast is actually deep fried bread. Yum. Actually the brits are notorious for the poor quality of their food... except maybe their fish and chips. You know why they can't cook? Before WW2 everybody had maids and chefs, then they laid them off because they couldn't afford them in WW2, and everybody started eating canned food... so they lost their cooking skills. The whole country!! Isn't that crazy? I thought it was crazy.

Another thing about London, is that it's very VERY expensive! Imagine all the prices being the same as in Canada, but in pounds instead of dollars, and a pound is worth about 2 dollars. On top of that, I was informed today by a British co-worker that a really good job in England pays around 30 000 pounds a year. A really good job. Needless to say, we ate out of grocery stores all weekend (except of course for a traditional meal of fish and chips), and I still came back broke. Looks like it's shoe leather for me for the rest of the month....

There was sooo much to do and sooo much to see, every step was amazing. And I took a lot of steps. My feet hate me.

On day one I thought I woke up at 7, but had forgotten to adjust my clock for the hour time difference and found out after I was fully showered, dressed and fed that I'd gotten up at 6. Unimpressed. Oh and our hostel is something of a story on it's own.. The website may have embellished a little bit on the quality of this hostel... I felt dirty while eating the continental breakfast. My bunk was right next to a really hot heater.. as in if I rolled over in the night I was in danger of recieving 3rd degree burns, no joke. And finding the box of 'pest control' poison under my bed on day 2 was a nice little treat as well. To make things more interesting, one of my travel companions, who shall remain anonymous, snores really really loudly. No really, he sounds like a train wreck, the bunk bed shakes when he snores. On the first night there was a group of 4 girls in the room and i think they were maybe a liitttlle less than impressed... I slept through most of it....i slept through an earthquake once, so as long as he keeps the bed shaking to a minimum the snoring really isn't too big a problem for me. What was a problem, was the very angry girl who kept storming across the room to yell at him for snoring so loud. He was so scared to come back on the 2nd night that he slept on the floor in another room. I made friends with the new people in the room that night.... it's much easier to do when they aren't grumpy from being kept up all night.

Oh wait, let me actually talk about culture shock for a second! I didn't really experience much when I first moved to Germany, and I would have thought I'd experience more there than in England, but not the case! This weekend showed me the effects that living in Germany have been having on me without me even knowing about it. I'd been in London for about half an hour when Cora mentioned something about the signs or advertisements posted everywhere... I hadn't even noticed them. Subconsciously, I've stopped paying attention to signs and ads, because in Germany I have no idea what they say. As soon as I realized...i can understand this stuff (!!!) it was like an overload of information...so much to take in! A while later I was walking down a hallway or something like it when all of a sudden my journey became really difficult. There were all these people coming at me, so navigating my way down the hall was really hard. I was momentarily confused, didn't these people know that you always stay to the right side of the hallway/stair/escalator? Omg they walk on the LEFT side of the hall, because they drive on the LEFT side of the road!! That was hard to get used to on the weekend... When I was on a path that was head on with somebody I would automatically move a little to the right to go around them, but they would automatically move to their left, my right....well lets just say it was awkward. There were some problems with looking the wrong way before crossing the street also....but i'm still alive! Actually once when I went to get off the bus i walked to the front and turned right and was shocked to see that there were no stairs there! The seat and wheel were there....i had to go left. It was too weird....

Ok, so now the actual sightseeing stuff! As I mentioned, I was up stupidly early, so i went out to explore the city before the attractions actually started to open. First stop, Big Ben and the Parliament buildings! Quick question for you to answer....what is Big Ben? Bet you said a clock. WRONG! It's actually the name of the largest bell inside the clock tower. Tourists aren't allowed inside or inside the parliament buildings this time of year, but they were really nice to look at. We also checked out the London Eye, an enormous ferris wheel that takes half an hour to make one full rotation and costs waaayy to much for me to even consider getting on it with my budget.

Next stop: Westminster Abbey. This place is a MUST SEE, it was amazing...We spent a loott of time there. Inside is covered in monuments of royalty, famous poets, scientists. Darwin, Sir Isaac Newton (anybody read The Da Vinci Code?), Churchill, Shakespear, tons of kings and queens...The monuments are all over the walls, on the floors, statues and tombs everywhere! Funny that Darwin was burried in such a prominent church given that he upset so many religous people. Princess Di was also married and her funeral held here. Whenever a king or queen is crowned, it's done here, on a really really old wooden chair.

Saturday night we scored half price tickets to see Hamlet! I was sooo stoked about this, Hamlet is my most favorite Shakespeare play that i've read, and of course England's culture is so rich in theatre. The play was fantastic (or at least I thought so....a couple of my travel buddies took the opportunity to catch up on some z's), and the guy who played Hamlet was brilliant. I won't be surprised if i see him in a major movie someday...he had that movie star look to him.

Sunday morning i got up a little less early, and we headed to The Tower of London. This is no ordinary tower... it's a medieval castle, straight out of Monty Python :P We spent 4 hours there and took a tour from a Yeoman Warder (nicknamed Beefeaters...like on the bottle of gin). These guys are soo enthusiastic in the tours when they tell stories about things that once happened at the tower, and they all wear a traditional Beefeater costume (not the one on the bottle, that one is really expensive and only worn on special occasions) so I thought at first that they must just be hired tour guides. Not so. To become a Beefeater they have to serve for 20 or 30 years in the army/navy/military and earn certain badges and medals....it's really tough to get the position! The Tower of London was used as a prison for a looott of people, some of them very high profile. There were public and private beheading sites. King Henry the 8th beheaded 2 of his wives at the tower, and in one of the towers you can see carvings and last words in the walls of the cells left behind by prisoners. Another hot feature was that this is where the crown jewels are kept! The building was guarded by one of those guys in the really tall hats who almost refuse to breathe, let alone smile or acknowledge anybody. The jewels were gorgeous, there's a sceptar containing the largest diamond in the world, and the crowns....they're COVERED in more than 20 000 jewels! I took some blurry pictures and got in very big trouble for doing so.... I really don't know what the big deal is though...

Of course, what would a trip to London, England be without a stop at Buckingham Palace? The place is enormous... all I could think about was how much work it would take to keep it clean.....I'm a dork. There were a bunch more of those tall-hatted guard guys here, and then just incase all the tourists outside the gates didn't take them seriously (those hats do look awfully cuddly), there was a guard in normal clothes with an enormous gun. However even he lost his intimidation factor when he stopped his patrol of the gates to hit on some cute blond. "Wherabouts are you from?" Who cares mister, get back to guarding the palace!! Honestly, if anybody ever wants to break in there, just bring a hot chick along, you could hoist an elephant over the fence and the guard wouldn't have noticed :P I dunno about those hat guys though....they didn't appear to be easily distracted....

Check out all the london pics on my space!

Berlin!

Berlin was SUCH a trip! And I don't mean trip as in vacation....This excursion rocked my socks. The whole weekend was sooo amazing...I want to go back for sure! If anybody ever does a Europe excursion, put Berlin on your travel route, it's a MUST SEE!!!

All the students went on this one...I really can't even begin to describe this experience properly...

We got up well before dawn...again, and landed in Berlin before 8 a.m. on saturday morning, checked into our hostel and hit up a FREE 4 hour walking tour.. I swear the tour guide hardly stopped to breathe the whole time....every second was sooo interesting, but major information overload...I forget half of what I learned the whole time I was there.

I learned a lot about the history of Germany, especially concerning all it's wars, Hitler, the division of West and East Germany for so many years....just wow. I stood over Hitler's bunker where he committed suicide... you'd never know where you were standing if somebody knowledgeable didn't point it out. For obvious reasons, Berlin did not erect any sort of memorial here, they've chosen to view everything from the perspective of the victims. Hitlers bunker is hidden beneath a parking lot, and apparently when there's no snow the place is covered in dog crap from people walking their dogs... fitting? The bunker lies below those fences and cars.

Along similar lines, Berlin has recently build a big glass dome on top of their parliament building where tourists can walk in (ran out of time so didn't make it here)...The tour guide suggested that it was fitting that the people of Berlin can look down on the politicians through the glass, and if the politicians ever forget what it is they're supposed to be doing they can look up at the people... I liked that.

I also saw, of course, THE WALL! In most places, all that remains is a line of bricks through the pavement signifying where it used to stand, but there was one spot where a hundred meters or so of it still stood...I even got a piece of my own to bring home with me(!)..of course paying a stupid amount...but I'm such a tourist. On the left below is a pic of me, having an allergic reaction to who knows what in front of the wall...that's why my face is red and puffy. Anybody used to be able to chip away at it with anything that didn't require electricity, which is why it's in such rough shape. On the right you can see a part of the line where the wall used to be...it's the one that looks like it doesn't belong there...

You might be thinking, ok that wall doesn't look so high...how did it keep people in the city? I had the same thought. But there were armed guards, guard dogs on wires running back and forth (I believe there were actually 2 walls, maybe with the dogs between them?), there was electric fencing and barbed wire, machine guns triggered to fire automatically....it was pretty tough. I think about 50% of the people who tried to escape over it made it, and a lot of people died. One of the really cool museums I went to, also known as Checkpoint Charlie, had a lot of interesting stories about escape attempts. People dug tunnels, snuck out in hollowed out compartments of speakers, surf boards, luggage, car engines... all kinds of neat attempts. The people from West Berlin could go back and forth from East Berlin on certain occasions, so people would try to sneak their friends/fiances/family across when they could.

Here's me roar-ing with the lions painted on what used to be the gates to the city Babylon. After very little sleep... You should have seen what Jimmy did to the lion...check out the rest of my Berlin pics when I post em...he's a true art lover.

We also went to the Jewish museum, which was unfortunately incredibly boring... but some parts were pretty neat. The new part of it was designed by the same guy who is currently designing the new World Trade Centre. The architecture was amazing, the walls, the windows, the displays, the floors...everything was at very odd angles and the effect was that I felt incredibly disoriented the entire time I was in there. The layout of the place made me feel lost, and small...a little dizzy, and very very disoriented. It also make me feel very sad. There were a lot of displays or little stories on specific Jewish people. Nobody famous or prominent, but average people..telling maybe a little about who they were, what they did, and how they died. This whole trip, I can't believe that WW2 happened, and I can't believe the reasons for it happening, I can't believe the holocaust occurred, and I can't believed that East and West Germany were separated and nobody allowed to leave the east...People were essentially prisoners in their own cities, and so many families and couples were split up.

The wall literally went up overnight... And actually the story of it coming down was really cool. It was a mistake! Somebody was making a big speech, and accidentally read a document out loud over television that he wasn't supposed to, stating that anybody with a valid visa could go back and forth as they pleased. The document was something he was handed, and was supposed to read privately in his own time, about things the government was considering, not that they had decided on. So pretty much everybody in the whole city immediately rushed to the wall, and 2 women who actually had visa's got the guards to open the doors, and then everybody flooded through the gates out of control. You know the first thing they did in the free west side? Went to the cinema. No joke! They wanted their first taste of western culture or something...all the theatres sold out in minutes. You know what movie was playing that night? The first thing these people saw, their first taste of western culture, was Dirty Dancing.

Saturday night was ridiculous! The same people who offered the free walking tour offer a pub crawl. Get this.. I paid 9 euros, this included entrance at all the different places the crawl went to (4 bars/lounges, 2 clubs), free beer during the first 45 minutes of the tour (out of kegs, sitting on the sidewalk on a busy street in the middle of the city no less), unlimited free vodka shots all night, and a looott of free/deals for drinks inside all the places we went. Picture around 70 or 80 people from all over the world on this crawl...it was sick! When we met up at the check point with the guide at the beginning of the night, within 5 minutes he was handing out little plastic shot glasses and continuously pouring everybody this half/half vodka/orange juice mix.... the guides pretty much tried to drown us... I think it's because they make most of their money through tips that the hammered people give them at the end of the night. I met a lot of really cool people that night...and well...lets just say I had a really really good night! Slept around 5 a.m. or so, and up again before 9 to continue the adventure! There's no such thing as sleep when you only have 2 days in an amazing city like Berlin :) Here's a shot of me, Petar and Feraz at the first lounge we stopped at.

I met this guy here below at another museum we went to. He has a great bum.

Vienna, Austria & Bratislava, Slovakia

**Warning - this is going to be a big one!**

My first big trip! I went with almost everybody I work with (Tara, Michelle, Cora, Jimmy, Jarrett), including Immi, and met Michael in Vienna (since he lives there)

We left hours before the sun came up on Friday morning, spent Friday, Saturday and a good part of Sunday in Vienna, then drove about an hour into Bratislava, Slovakia and came back on Monday!

This trip was amazing...i'm totally whiped out this week. That might have something to do with me contracting what I'm thinking might be food poisoning in Bratislava, but who knows.

Ok where do I start!

We landed in Vienna around 8:30 Friday morning, picked up a rental car and headed straight for Schloss Shönbrunn (directly translated as Castle 'Beautiful-Well'). This castle was totally and completely amazing.. I spent most of my time in Vienna walking around with my mouth open, everything was sooo beautiful and there was so much to see! Maybe that's why I'm sick...all the germs flew into my mouth while I walked around like a tourist 'ooohhing' and 'aaawwwiing' all the time.

This castle, is unlike anything I've ever seen...so luxurious, check out my pictures on my msn space. The tour guide was amazing also, he was a riot and included a lot of interesting stories about the origins of things. I have to share them!

Piggy Banks:
A long time ago, maybe in the 15th century, i can't remember, it was tradition for farmers to give their youngest pig away to a friend on New Years. I believe it was supposed to bring good luck in prosperity, hence why we put money in a piggy bank...for luck!

Flea Markets, Lucky Rabbit Foot, and Flea Bag:
Flea Market translates directly into many many different languages. Again, a long time ago people had a big problem with fleas. There were often markets, where you could go and pay a man who had a monkey, and this monkey would go through your hair and groom you, removing the fleas, hence the term flea market! To help with the flea problem, people often carried a small pouch at their waist containing a rabbit foot, so the fleas would go onto the foot instead of onto their own heads and bodies. Then at the end of the day, they would take the rabbit foot out and brush off all the fleas...and this is where our tradition of carrying a rabbit foot, or rubbing a rabbit foot for luck comes from! And this is also where the insult 'Flea Bag' comes from.

Cool? I thought so.

Next we go to check into our hostel, only to discover that we accidentally booked for January instead of February....woops! They gave us all of our money back though, thank goodness, and helped us book a new hostel. It was nice, clean, free breakfast, and so empty that the girls all managed to get a room together...no sharing with strangers this time.

Alright, so after this we met up with Peter, a friend of Michelles who happened to be studying in Vienna and he kindly played tour guide for us for the next couple of hours.

First stop was the city hall, which looks more like a mansion or a palace. By this time it was dark, and there were beautiful lights of all different colours lighting up this building (called the Rathaus, in German). There was a festival going on outside and Cora and I tried a very traditional winter drink called Glüwein, which is a hot spiced red wine, sort of like apple cider. It was tasty :)

Another place we visited worth noting was St. Stephans Cathedral (a gothic style church on the main shopping street). THIS building had me walking around with my head tipped back and my jaw dropped for a good half hour... Outside it's sort of scary looking, like something out of Lord Of The Rings, but it was sooo beautiful inside! The ceilings were so high, I can't even imagine how they were built.. there were so many paintings and stone carvings, the lighting was low, only a few candle lights around....i'm pretty much speachless trying to describe this...I wished so many other people could be there to see it with me! I was really lucky actually, there was some sort of service going on, so people were singing at the front....the whole experience gave me the shivers.

Eventually we all got hungry and met up with Michael for dinner and drinks, who promptly started to try to get me drunk, surprise surprise :P

All in all it was an amazing and beautiful and fantastically wonderful first day!

DAY 2!
We got up and walked around the city some more, taking in all the sites, and then made our way to an amazing building called the Hundertwasserhaus - Hudredwater house. Hudertwasser is an artist, and at some point somebody asked him to do some architecture. This building looked so out of place in Vienna, it looked like it belonged in Spain or something... Hundertwasser is a great nature lover, and this building definitely reflected that. There were no straight lines anywhere! Even the walls and the floors went in/out/up/down..... there were trees growing all over the roof and out of windows, everything was so brightly coloured... This guy believes that man has three skins: his own, his clothes and his dwelling, and that like his own skin, his dwelling should change and grow and adapt in order to be harmonious with nature.....or something like that. This picture is just one side of the building, and it really doesn't do it justice...ask to see my postcards when I get back!! Or better yet, do a quick google search for Hundertwasserhaus images. So gorgeous!

Michael took us all to a restaurant that brewed it's own beer right behind the bar. I tried two of it's 7 specialties - a Chili beer which was sooo spicy.. (Everybody at the table tasted it and after a 1.5 second pause made a face like they'd been slapped, it was great lol) and their Hemp beer. Yep, hemp beer! It was quite sweet actually, and very good :)

After the hemp beer we made some funny faces....just for fun of course :P

Next! We went to a place called Millenium City, where I rode a mechanical bull, played some DDR and won a game of bowling :D Ask me about for the bull videos later if you want, they're funny.

DAY 3!!!

Cora, Michelle and I braved less than 4 hours of sleep to get up and go watch the famous Vienna Boys Choir perform early Sunday morning. Vienna is very famous for music, and many famous musicians have called this gorgeous city their home in the past. Ever heard of Mozart? Beethoven? Shubert? Did you know that Mozart gave his first tour when he was only 6 years old? He went to a toonn of different countries to perform too...it's amazing! So we went to a pretty church inside the imperial palace, after wandering around for aggeess with our luggage because we were lost... But on the upside, we saw a lot of beautiful buildings on our little tour :P After the show Michelle and I cornered one of the adorable choir boys and played paparazzi....again, check out my pics!

After this we met up with the rest of the crew at Cafe Central for some hot chocolate and Mozart Cake. Vienna is also very famous for it's coffee shops...that's what people do in Vienna. They chill out in a cafe, drinking coffee, eating cake. When they get bored, they get up and move to another coffee shop :P

Last stop in Vienna - Haus der Musik - a super cool music museum! We spent a few hours here, everything is interactive...not like your average museum where you just look at everything and get yelled at when you touch it (every single time....but i still can't help myself!)...it was very cool. They had not only a lot of info and displays on the famous musicians, but a lot of cool stuff on sound, including a room that was supposed to recreate what it felt like to be in the womb.

BRATISLAVA!!

Next we take the hour trip to Bratislava to meet up with some people from the IBM team there...a bunch of young people actually, in their early 20's.

Now, before I left, while I was there, and after I returned I recieved several warning messages from my friends about the horror movie 'Hostel' which is located in Bratislava... My hostel was perfectly fine, but thanks for your concern guys :). Although I have to admit, when I got out of the car to go check in, I was very sketched out... We had to walk through this pitch dark alley and all the buildings around were crumbling and falling apart... It was scary for a few minutes.

So we met up with our Bratislavian teammates at a bar and hung out on this little balcony inside, kneeling on cushions on the floor around a low table. This proximity to the floor proved to be a verrryy good thing later in the night... at one point I remember looking up from my conversation and the whole team was sprawled on the floor... compliments of 'Slivovica'... a Bratislavian specialty shot, of about 60% alcohol. Good times, good times :P

This night was also my downfall, but not because of the drink. I ate this spicy Indian food...possibly the spiciest thing I've ever eaten. Now those of you who know me well, will know that I LOVE spicy food! The spicier the better... I always get the suicide wings...my Indian friends tease me because I'm a white girl, and can generally survive spicier food than some of them! I won 3rd place in a hot wing eating contest this summer... and I was one of 2 girls... Ok, so now you've got my background, you can understand why I thought this would be ok.. I didn't break a sweat, my nose didn't run, my eyes didn't water...nothing! So while I thought, ok, ya it's hot, i'll be fine. The next day I was a mess though...and today, 2 days later my stomach is still very very angry with me. I was so nauseous when I woke up monday...but I didn't throw up or anything....UNTIL...the worse possible time and place that I could have thrown up that day. We went in to the IBM office to visit the Bratislavian guys one more time...I was a whitish-green colour...it was awful.. So we're about to leave, waiting for the elevator....it arrives...and I know it's alll over. I ran for the bathroom, but it was sooo far away... really I was lucky that Michelle and Cora chased after me, and that Michelle had a plastic bag in her purse, because I was eyeing up a spot on the carpet, and somebody's garbage can under their desk was looking very attractive. Maybe I should ask for a job now, that I've made such an impression :P Actually though, the night before the team lead was teasing....said I was the only girl who had survived the Bratislavian drinking and asked if I wanted a job :P

Annnnyywayss.... we walked around Bratislava a bit, but i still felt like a 3 mile high mountain of garbage for the rest of the day, so I took it easy.

All in all a great vacation though! I wished so many times that I could show everybody everything....I wish I could share everything special with you!

Check out my pictures and feel free to leave comments and ask questions, I always love to hear from you :)

Much love all,